The official Bank of Ireland account has tweeted a reassurance to a customer who complained that there was "no sight" of his $1m transfer from a 'nigerian prince'.

The joke, which references a famous email scam in which a man or woman claiming to be a prince or princess of a foreign country asks the email owner to allow them to deposit money in their bank account in return for a cut of the money.

This well-known scam is a running joke online, and one Twitter user used it as a lighthearted jibe following the negative backlash relating to the delay of salary payments for thousands of banking customers.

The Bank of Ireland Twitter account clearly missed the joke, however, replying "Apologies all. All payments due yesterday were sent to accounts overnight" and advising '@the_kenmeister' to check his account throughout the day to see if they money had gone through.

The screenshot of the interaction is being shared across Twitter as Irish users get a good laugh from the incident. We think it's great to see some humour coming out of the situation!

@talktoBOI Still no sign of my $1m from the prince of Nigeria....must be the bank holiday weekend....Tuesday perhaps